“No, thanks. I’m embracing my descent into total disarray.”
“How very dignified of you, Tree,” she said in a false English accent. She leaned forward and kissed the mirror, leaving a perfect imprint of her lips on the glass, before exiting. She didn’t wait for me; I think she was making an effort to give me space, or independence, or something.
I hovered a few minutes more. Stonehenge already felt like worlds away, even though we’d only left about an hour ago. Jim-with-the-trailer showed up around midday and, fed up of the crowds by then (and desperately needing a toilet break) we’d left straightaway for Amesbury, the nearest village. We didn’t yet know exactly how we were getting home, and a part of me wanted to take as long as possible. Maybe dip into Jeanne’s home country of Wales, which was only a few hours northwest, or turn Chris’s lie of biking to the furthermost tip of Cornwall into a reality, only a few hours southwest. Then, the more rational part of me realized how terrifying that would be via motorbike.
Jeanne, obviously, saddled herself with Ritchie, so I was left awkwardly clinging onto Chris for dear life as he hit speeds that the car never would’ve been able to reach. I was glad I hadn’t eaten before we left. At least the sprawling roads of Salisbury Plain involved few bends, but the idea of winding our way through a city—or anywhere that wasn’t open countryside—was nauseating.
“I say we follow the same route home,” Chris suggested when we reconvened. “We’ll stop at Ashely’s again to, ah, check up on the car, and then gun it the rest of the way back in one go.”
Then what? Life went on, I supposed.
“Speaking of gunning it,” Jeanne said, “my wrist is killing me. I’m not sure how tightly I’ll be able to hang on.”
“Oh, crap.” Ritchie appeared to have forgotten that little detail.
Jeanne decided, after milking our sympathy for a while, that she would be fine. She demonstrated how she’d use her good hand to clamp onto the other one, making me wonder if it really was broken at all (the swelling had definitely gone down). Then we were off again.
Before, I pictured the boys’ bikes to be Top Gun-worthy machines, all chrome exhaust pipes and shiny colors. After their revelation, my standards had substantially lowered. In fact, had they produced children’s tricycles I doubt I’d have been that surprised. So when Jim unloaded two proper motorcycles, regardless of their condition, I was impressed. Chris’s was barely more than a moped, with a front light the size of my head and tiny wheels with spokes that reminded me of a bicycle. It was a rusted cobalt blue, and sported circular wing mirrors that gave the illusion of ears, somehow. Ritchie’s was a tad cooler, solid black with a crimson leather seat and the Honda branding still intact, clearly restored—with questionable skill—to make it faster. Both were at least a decade old.
The helmet Chris gave me stunk of sweat and kept slipping down over my eyes. Luckily it had a full visor, so at least I was spared being blinded by the wind on top of everything else. It was an odd feeling, glancing down at my feet and seeing the tarmac rushing mere inches underneath them, and after a while, I’d almost forgotten that the figure I was holding on to was Chris. The seams of my skinny jeans were digging in like crazy, though, and I doubted whether or not I’d ever be able to sit down again. It was far from the romantic situation I’d envisioned.
The green downs and Cotswold stone villages shifted back into a more urban scene as the afternoon drew on, and the journey grew more interesting. We nearly toppled sideways at a set of traffic lights when I, apparently, “distributed my weight wrong.” Memories of the solstice sunrise and Stonehenge preoccupied my thoughts enough that I paid next to no attention to the present situation, and even though it took several hours to arrive in London, I barely processed more than a few minutes.
“You’re in luck,” Ashley told Jeanne. “The mechanic guy said the car is salvageable. It will be around a week, at the very least, before it’s running again, however.”
She went on to name the horrifically high number that Jeanne owed her for having the car towed, high enough that I wondered if she’d added interest. Jeanne didn’t question her.
The night passed much more uneventfully than it had last time we were in London, everyone dead-on-their-feet exhausted. We slept in, woken up at ten a.m. when Ashley’s boyfriend arrived to take her to work. I managed to beat the others to the shower, freshening up just in time to become all sweaty and windswept on the back of Chris’s motorcycle again. Clearing London was a painfully slow affair, dragged out all the more thanks to Jeanne’s injury. As I took it all in, the identical buildings and identical people, how nobody gave you a sideways glance, I decided that even if I did go to school and try for a proper career, I wouldn’t come to the city. I’d come home.
“You all right back there, Teresa?” Chris shouted, weaving in and out of stalled cars along the motorway. “We’re nearly out.”
I nodded, every part of my body aching and my stomach lurching with each turn. Absolutely peachy.
Fortunately, most morning traffic was heading into London rather than out of it, so we managed to escape within an hour. Enter the suburban towns, networks of council estates and supermarkets and immaculate school playing-fields. On a motorbike, it was faster to weave our way through these than risk getting jammed in an A-road queue.
“Holy roundabouts, Batman,” Jeanne called, riding parallel to us now the roads were quieter. “I feel like we’re on some fairground ride. I’ve nearly fallen off, like, twice.”
“Three times,” Ritchie corrected.
Another roundabout loomed ahead, this one the center of five intersections. It must have been newly built, as the decorative trees in the middle were no more than sticks.
“With that gimpy grip of yours,” I said to Jeanne, “I bet you, say, five pounds that me and Chris can clear that faster than you two.”
“Make it ten,” Jeanne grinned, brightening at the idea of a bet, “and I reckon we can beat you going around the wrong way.”
“Because speeding isn’t dangerous enough?” I laughed. Then I realized she wasn’t joking.
Chris and Ritchie shared a glance, sizing each other up. A dark, sardonic smile appeared behind Ritchie’s visor.
“You really shouldn’t have said that,” Chris sighed.
“Wait—” I began.
I was cut off by the screeching of engines and tires as both boys shot off, Ritchie narrowly managing to squeeze ahead of us. The roundabout was upon us in less than a heartbeat, and to my utter dismay, they headed straight into the oncoming traffic. I shrieked as a bus bore down on us, honking madly, and another car was forced to swerve off the road to avoid hitting us.
“Stop, stop, stop!”
“Go, go, go!” Jeanne squealed. “We’re gonna—argh!”
She must have slipped, as Ritchie slowed down which enabled Chris and I to whiz past.
“Chris!”
Another bus. More honking. Me screaming, Jeanne shrieking for Ritchie to hurry up. Then, just like that, we were stopped on the side of the road, the roundabout behind us.
“Owned,” Chris jeered. “High-five, Teresa!”
I tapped his hand weakly.
“Rematch,” Ritchie demanded, taking off his helmet and shaking his hair. “Jeanne—”
“Owes me ten pounds,” I interrupted, glaring at her, “and an extra twenty for giving me a heart attack.”
“Okay,” she said, in such a way I knew she’d never dream of paying up. Then she frowned. “Ritchie, you’re shaking.”
“Must have something to do with staring death in the face,” I suggested.
“Nah,” Chris chuckled, “he’s allergic to losing.”
“Well, then you must be allergic to winning, because you have the shakes too,” Ritchie snapped. “I suppose it’s a shock for you.”
It turned out that that little escapade hadn’t just freaked me out, so we walked the bikes over to a nearby carpark to laugh it off.
Chris exhaled out of the cor
ner of his mouth. “That was actually nuts.”
“This entire trip has been nuts.” Jeanne adjusted the scarf wrapped around her wrist, kicking at loose gravel and pacing back and forth. “We need to plan to do it again some time.”
I thought about Elm House and the tapered lanes, of terrible mistakes and the amazing spectacle of Stonehenge. But even the lowest moments wouldn’t stop me from doing it all over again.
“Where would we go?” I asked.
Jeanne thought. “I don’t know. Paris? We could cross the channel on one of those hovercraft things.”
I wrinkled my nose, the unpleasantness of London still fresh in my mind. “How about north? Into the Lake District?”
“Or farther,” Chris suggested. “Scotland. Loch Ness. The Highlands.”
“Even up there I’m sure we’ll manage to make stupid memories. There are more stone circles in the north, after all,” Jeanne mused. Then, with a guilty glimpse at me, “But of the good kind. Promise.”
So, that was that. None of us really believing it would ever happen, we agreed to reconvene next summer to try and push as far north as the roads allowed. Theoretical as it was, there was some comfort in the possibility of this not being the end.
We moved onward. Strange roads became familiar ones. There was the sign welcoming us to Essex, and there was the village with the Crown and Thistle. Then we were in Suffolk, and signs counted down the miles to Mildenhall. Fifteen miles, seven miles, one mile . . .
It was odd. We’d dragged out the journey west for so long, and nothing but petrol stops and traffic had held us up going east. Maybe the bikes felt faster than the old car. Maybe time slowed down when you didn’t have a deadline.
We weren’t allowed to go in, so the boys pulled up outside the barbed-wire fences to let us off.
“Well,” Chris said, awkwardly.
“Well.”
“Well.”
“Well.”
Absently, I did a few squats in effort to regain feeling in my legs. Several planes took off from the runway on the other side of the fence, roaring through the countryside silence, and I noticed the guards at the base gates watching us.
“Thanks for dragging us along.” Chris held out a hand for us to shake, then retracted it again. “Um . . . ”
“One day,” Jeanne interjected, saving him, “we’ll scare you as much as you two did to us.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Ritchie drawled.
“No, we will.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
We stared at each other. What to say? We’d only known each other a few days. Of course, it felt more like I’d been to the edge of the universe and back with them.
Then Chris announced, what the heck, why didn’t they take us the rest of the way back to Castle Acre? It was an hour away by bus, so it seemed silly to abandon us like this. And, he went on, he wanted to see our home village.
This gave us an extra forty minutes to stew over the notion of saying goodbye. For me, it was especially strange; since nobody ever left Castle Acre, I’d never had to say goodbye like this. Of course, there was always the possibility that we actually would meet up again next year, but with people like the boys and Jeanne, I knew better than to bank on it.
Jeanne had obviously been mulling over the same thing, as when we pulled up on the outskirts of the village, she threw her arms around Ritchie before he even had a chance to get off the bike. He stumbled sideways, knocking her arm.
“Oh, I—”
She kissed him, full on the lips, ignoring whatever pain she was in. Ignoring Chris and I, ignoring the stares of the locals peeping through their curtains.
I colored and looked away.
“Well,” Chris said, “that makes my offer of a handshake look lame.”
But he extended a hand anyway.
Then Jeanne, fighting back tears, broke away from Ritchie and ran down the lane into the village. And, me being me, I ran after her. When I looked over my shoulder they were both gone.
Just like that.
THE SECOND I WALKED INTO MY HOUSE, THE ROAD trip felt like it happened forever ago. The boys, the solstice, all of it. My mum hugged me, apologizing for not telling me about Jeanne’s plan, went on about how glad she was I got home safely, then started berating me when she realized I’d left my suitcase in London. I opted not to tell her why.
Jeanne didn’t visit me for a few days. When she finally did, her wrist was properly bound in gauze (apparently it was a sprain, not a break), and she was wearing a flower crown similar to what we’d seen at Stonehenge.
“I forgot to get his number!” she wailed, the second I opened the door.
“Whose?”
She stared at me like my eyes had gone black. “Ritchie’s.”
With a dull thud, I realized I hadn’t gotten Chris’s either. It was a shame.
Jeanne, I was surprised and pleased to note, began referring to me as Teresa rather than Tree. When I pointed that out, she gave her sincerest apology yet for her actions, and we talked everything out. The world was back to normal again.
Summer dragged on, one of the coldest on record. I kept working at a spa shop, and Jeanne began working as a live-in nanny at a nearby stately home. Come September, reviling the idea of another purposeless year, I made the decision to go to school. It was something that would’ve terrified me months ago, but if nothing else, that road trip had made me braver. England wasn’t quite so big anymore. There was a college in King’s Lynn, a town not too far away from Castle Acre, where I was accepted to study journalism. I’d never had the imagination for stories, but found a penchant for real-life reporting; I was even offered a job by a regional newspaper just before my nineteenth birthday.
“And guess why they wanted me?” I asked Jeanne over the phone. “They liked an essay I wrote on the solstice!”
“Teresa Swanson, you smarty pants,” Jeanne laughed. “Gosh, do you feel grown up?”
“Horribly so.”
“Hang on. Give me two seconds to get ready, and I can fix that.”
“How?”
“Shh.”
“Wait, wait; do I need to pack?” But the line went dead.
Jeanne still dragged me into stupid situations, but kept them firmly inside the line of the law now. I tried to convince her to come to college with me, or even try for university so she could actually study astronomy, but she never went through with it. She quit being a nanny, hating her boss, and moved in with another family to take care of their disabled daughter. Then she quit that to become a waitress, citing better pay, then decided she didn’t need a job at all. Her parents clearly thought differently, since by the time June rolled around again, she’d joined a private Montessori school as a teaching assistant.
“I quite like teaching,” she told me. “I’m thinking of going abroad to teach English for a few years. Maybe France, or Italy, or Switzerland. Mum said she had a friend who taught in Argentina for six months—how awesome would that be?”
“You can’t leave me!” I exclaimed, aghast. “Jeanne, you can’t!”
“Shocking,” she teased. “Teresa the Independent needs me too.” Then she grew serious. “Thing is, I’m kind of getting itchy feet here. I want to travel again, even if it’s only to . . . I don’t know, Ipswich.”
“Don’t let anyone hear you say that,” I warned with mock seriousness. “They’ll lynch you.” Ipswich, Suffolk, was the rival team to Norfolk’s Norwich in practically every sporting event.
Joking aside, I understood what she meant. With the solstice of 1988 rapidly approaching, I couldn’t help reminiscing about the mystery and starry skies of last year. I almost felt homesick for it. Jeanne probably would’ve planned another trip by now, except for the fact she was still waiting for the boys to reach out to us first. They knew where we were. Their silence made me wonder if they’d gone back to America.
A week after final exams, I got another call from Jeanne. She sounded scaril
y excited.
“Meet me at the priory carpark!” she ordered, before I had a chance to even say hello. “And, yes, you need to pack. As much as you can.”
“Jeanne . . . ”
The lined clicked and died.
That was when I began to wonder. I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but I hadn’t heard Jeanne sound so animated for ages.
Self-consciously, I hauled a little suitcase crammed with all possible essentials through the winding village lanes to the priory, surrounded by visitors for the summer months. And there, amidst the picnicking families and elderly tour groups, were Chris, Ritchie, and Jeanne, waving at me wildly from a convertible they’d dragged right out of the previous decade.
My jaw dropped.
“Come on, Tree-Tree,” Chris said, pushing up his new, nondescript sunglasses so I could see his wink. “We’re going to Scotland.”
At this stone circle, there are no crowds. The stones are far less majestic, thinner and jagged and spaced far apart. Red heather forms a barrier between the circle, the gray-green plain, and the steely loch beyond. In the distance, on the other shore, clouds are beginning to roll over the hills and signal in the nighttime. The magic here is quieter.
Ritchie and Jeanne stand by the water, talking softly. Neither of them had found anyone else in their year apart, and from what I can gather, Ritchie is considering applying to stay in England permanently, so Jeanne wants to rekindle whatever relationship started last summer.
Chris, ever unable to stand alone, moves beside me.
“I forgot to compliment your hair,” he says, awkwardly.
Ordinarily, I’d roll my eyes at the idea of such small talk in a place like this. But I’ve been waiting for him to notice, so I blush and thank him. Fed up of the purple and feeling brave, I dyed my whole head brown again, ditched the mousse and adopted feathery layers, and bleached my fringe blond. I’m about ninety percent sure I like the change.
He follows my gaze to Ritchie and Jeanne. “You know, I think they might be all right. They’ve been better this time around.”
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